In what is billed by the Justice Department as the "first lawsuit in support of gun owners seeking concealed weapons permits," the federal government is coming out swinging for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. 

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division initiated an investigation into the LASD in March, following numerous complaints of unreasonable delays in CCW permitting decisions by the agency. This week's lawsuit, seeking relief on behalf of law-abiding applicants, comes after an analysis of more than 8,000 new and renewed CCW permits pending between January 2024 and March 2025. These included 3,982 applications for a new license, of which LASD issued only two. 

The complaint details that the median number of days LASD took to advance a submitted application to the interview stage was 372 days, while at least one was still pending after 1,030 days. Going further, the agency has a pattern of scheduling interviews to approve licenses as far as two years after receiving the completed application. 

This comes even while California state law requires the LASD to provide concealed carry applicants with an initial approval or denial for a new license within 90 days. 

The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the LASD's pattern of "approving virtually no new concealed carry weapon permit applications submitted by law-abiding applicants violates the Second Amendment as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment," and an injunction prohibiting the agency from further violations. 

"The Second Amendment is not a second-class right," said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division on the case. "This lawsuit seeks to stop Los Angeles County’s egregious pattern and practice of delaying law-abiding citizens from exercising their right to bear arms."

Gun rights advocates welcome the news. 

"This is a landmark lawsuit in that it’s the first time the Department of Justice has ever filed a case in support of gun owners," said Second Amendment Foundation Executive Director Adam Kraut in an email to Guns.com. "We are thrilled to see the federal government step up and defend the Second Amendment rights of citizens and hope this pattern continues around the country."

Banner image: A Walther PPK/s in .32ACP in Galco’s Stinger belt holster with an open top and forward cant that allows a fast, easy draw stroke. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)